An Unusual Association
by RoseAngelx
Summary: In 126 years of existing as a vampire, Sherlock Holmes had learnt two things. The first was that immortality was overrated. The second was that werewolves were dull, primitive creatures who would act on instinct and go for the throat of any vampire of whom they caught a scent. Then he met John Watson.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

For many humans, there is something desirable about the idea of immortality. The world has much to offer – there are so many things to do and places to see. People make bucket lists of things to do before they die that they are likely to never complete. No matter the age or reason, death is sudden and unexpected, and there is no way to plan for it, to ensure that you experience everything that you want in life before it comes to an end. For that reason, there is something exquisite about the idea of living forever. To have all the time in the world to travel and sightsee, to go to concerts and shows, and to spend years doing nothing productive without feeling as though you're wasting your life away is an impossible ideal, a beautiful dream.

What humans don't know is that immortality is so unbearably _dull_.

Even in his thirty-three years of being human, Sherlock Holmes had learnt how painfully boring the world could be. From time to time, there would be something to make him feel alive – a gruesome murder to investigate, bodies torn to shreds by not animals but men. There were often experiments to be had, chemicals to be combined, and tests to be run. Yet sometimes, sometimes there was nothing; there was no reason to go outside, nor attempt to interact with any single being. Sometimes, there was boredom, the sort that seeps into your brain and spreads through your body, leaving you with neither the strength nor the motivation to push yourself up onto your feet. Some days, no matter how hard you try, no matter how many distractions you seek, there is a boredom that cannot be relieved.

Then, in the winter of 1887, the blood was drained from Sherlock's body and replaced with the blood of a vampire. Of course, there was the initial fascination, the enthrallment of inhumane strength and enhanced senses, and the blood, sweeter than any substance he had ever injected into his veins. Eventually, however, there came the sort of boredom that could last an eternity. After existing for over a century, with the knowledge that that amount of time could be only a fraction of the total amount that he would spend on this earth, existence began to seem pointless, immortality overrated. There is only so much joy and excitement in a world that, though constantly developing, never seems to change. Technology improves, medical research lengthens the human lifespan, and yet, the world continues to turn, people are born and people die, and everything begins to seem monotonous. It feels as though the past is repeating itself over and over, but no human lives long enough to notice. After spending so long on this earth, it's so easy to become lethargic, to fail to see the point in anything at all.

Occasionally, there is relief. Occasionally, there is a mystery to solve, an adventure to be had. There is something strange, something exciting, to hold his attention for days, maybe even weeks, but in the end, the feeling is lost, and the boredom seeps in once again.

Yet sometimes, very, very rarely, there is something unusual, something new. Sometimes, there is a reason to feel alive, to feel grateful to be here for this experience, and sometimes, this reason comes in the most unexpected of forms.

OoO

Whether lying on the sofa or walking through the streets, no matter how distracted he may seem to be by the thoughts inside his head, Sherlock Holmes was always aware of the goings on around him. Even in boredom, he could never turn his brain off; if he passed a human in the streets he would be deducing them - their relationship status, career, intentions. If he entered a room, he would be conscious of anything that had changed since he had last been there, anything that was out of place. With each of his senses enhanced, it was easy for him to observe and deduce, to notice things that most humans would miss.

So, naturally, when there was an unusual smell in the air one afternoon, it took him only a fraction of a second to notice, and scarcely more than that to identify it: _werewolf_.

It certainly would not be the first werewolf that Sherlock had come across during his existence – the vampire had to move around often to avoid drawing attention to the fact that he was not ageing, and some of the places he had visited were heavily populated with the creatures. These places were ones he would not spend very long in, if he could help it. Werewolves were territorial creatures, and they would not respond well to the smell of a creature that could kill them with one bite, as they could do to him. No supernatural creatures got along, but vampires and werewolves posed such a risk to one another's existence that they could be considered biological enemies, and there were very few parts of the world where they happily coexist.

This particular werewolf, however, would be the first that Sherlock had the unfortunate chance of meeting in London. Being a large, busy city with plenty of hospitals and blood banks (or even willing donors), and with the days often being overcast, London certainly was not a bad choice of home for a vampire. The scent of the undead all through the city was usually enough to drive away any werewolf who did consider moving in, and even without this, it would not be popular amongst werewolves. Whilst vampires preferred busy cities, werewolves were known to occupy the quieter locations, places where they were less likely to be seen, where there was less risk of them coming across too many unsuspecting humans. Werewolves preferred locations with forests or woods, not with bright lights and tall towers. It didn't make sense, why this werewolf would therefore be in London, and so it was only natural that this unusual werewolf would catch Sherlock's attention.

He scanned the park quickly, and it only took him a moment to locate where the scent was coming from. The werewolf was in human form – unsurprising, given the time of the day and the general desire of all supernatural creatures to not end up the test subject of scientific experiments. He was a military man, judging by his haircut and the way he held himself, and the cane and limp suggested he was wounded in battle. He walked as if he knew the place, but Sherlock had never noticed him or his scent before – he must have lived here years ago and returned here only very recently, likely after being invalidated home. That would explain why he was in London, despite it being vampire territory. It was likely that he had been bitten when he was abroad, and he would have returned to his previous home of London because he didn't know any better.

All this was deduced in a mere couple of seconds, but these observations were overshadowed by the far more pressing one – the werewolf was walking towards him.

Sherlock stiffened imperceptibly, doing his best not to stare. He pursed his lips shut, feeling his fangs lengthening inside his mouth, preparing for a confrontation. The instinctual reaction would be to either fight or flee, before the werewolf had the chance to harm him, and Sherlock knew his scent would set off the same instincts in the wolf. Sherlock had the sort of self-control needed to avoid this sort of brawl in the middle of the park, but werewolves were far more primitive, far more likely to act on these instincts.

The park was filled with humans, and even idiots would notice if the man walking towards Sherlock suddenly shifted into the form of a wolf, just as they would notice if Sherlock opened his mouth and exposed unnaturally sharp teeth. If they fought, exposure of both their species was at risk, and yet Sherlock knew from experience that werewolves could, and would attack anyway, responding to instinct rather than logical thought. Sherlock considered running, turning on his heels and escaping before a confrontation occurred, but if he could smell the wolf, the wolf could smell him, and running would only result in a chase.

There were no more than five steps in between him and the werewolf; there was no way he could get away in time.

Four steps; his fangs pressed against the inside of his lips.

Three steps; his body prepared to block an attack, to duck and move the moment the werewolf lunged.

Two steps; the werewolf wrinkled his nose and looked around.

One step; their eyes met, and Sherlock prepared to move.

Zero.

The werewolf shifted his gaze from Sherlock's eyes (the contact had been so brief, with a human he would have assumed that they had not seen him at all) to face ahead; he passed Sherlock and -

- kept walking without a word, leaving Sherlock frowning behind him.

_That _was unusual.

Sherlock looked over his shoulder quickly, body still stiff and ready to move, in case this werewolf was intelligent enough to have planned out a course of action and was prepared to attack from behind. However, the werewolf was still walking, without looking back. His heart rate sounded accelerated, more so than it should have been for a man taking a walk through the park at that pace, but otherwise, he didn't seem to have noticed Sherlock at all. His body was showing none of the initial signs of shifting – his hair wasn't lengthening and his body wasn't beginning to contort and shift. To a human walking by, there would be nothing abnormal about the man with the cane, and that was precisely why this situation was not normal in the slightest.

Sherlock watched as the man continued to walk, putting more and more distance in between them. It didn't make any sense. Sherlock had never met a werewolf with that much self-control, with the ability to pass a vampire without batting an eyelid. The creature should have shifted, lunged at his throat; at very least he should have shown signs suggesting that he was putting in the effort to control himself, consciously suppressing the instinctual urge to kill. Yet there he was, going about his day as if nothing unusual had occurred at all.

This was the only werewolf in London, as far as Sherlock was concerned, and the only werewolf he had met who had not lunged at Sherlock's throat upon catching his scent.

This werewolf was unusual, in more ways than one, and perhaps something this unusual was worth investigating.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter** **Two**

Werewolf scent trails were never difficult to follow. Whether they intended it to or not, a werewolf's scent lingered for hours, even days after they passed through an area. It marked areas as their territory, marked ownership of the things they touch, and it could even mark members of their pack. If you knew what you were doing, you could follow a werewolf home hours after they had left, and you could work out precisely what route they had taken. As he walked through the park, Sherlock could tell exactly where the werewolf had stepped, and which bench he had sat down on. If he focussed hard enough, he could work out where the werewolf had paused or waited, and where he had walked past quickly.

With this knowledge, there was no need for Sherlock to follow the creature immediately; it wouldn't matter if he lost track of the man. With Russell Square Gardens as a starting point, he could spend a few hours on other tasks before he began the task of locating the werewolf and determining whether or not he planned to stay in London. This was useful, because Sherlock wasn't foolish enough to believe that avoiding a fight once guaranteed that the werewolf would not lash out and attack him the next time they met. He would be an idiot if he decided to hunt down a werewolf on an empty stomach, and Sherlock Holmes was most definitely not an idiot.

After the newborn vampire stage of insatiable hunger, the average vampire required a pint of blood every day or two to continue functioning at full strength. They could survive starving for longer, but as their body processed the blood from their last feeding, they would become weaker and weaker until they were, for all intents and purposes, nothing but a cold corpse. Sherlock, however, was not the average vampire. Ironic as it may be, given that blood gives vampires strength, Sherlock had always insisted that processing blood slowed him down, and it was an inconvenience for him to have to take time out of his day to do so. His body had become used to functioning on less blood than the average vampire a long time ago; he pushed through the hunger with sheer willpower alone.

It had been two days now since the last time Sherlock had fed, and although on a normal day he wouldn't bother, he knew better than to go into a potential fight in this state. He had used up the last of the blood bags he stored in his fridge the last time that he fed, but that was of no concern, because he knew of a pathologist at St Bart's Hospital who had proved on multiple occasions her willingness to give him what he needed.

OoO

To call St Bart's Hospital Sherlock Holmes' second home would not be an entirely incorrect statement. Although he had no sentimental attachment to the hospital as most would do to the place they call home, he tended to spend as much, if not more, time there than he did at his own flat. On top of the bodies that he examined when consulting on cases for Scotland Yard, St Bart's provided him with scientific equipment that he had access to nowhere else, to use for cases, experiments, or simply for his own pleasure. His presence at the hospital was normal, even expected – one of the professors, Mike Stamford, had introduced him to his class when they passed the lab he was using, and warned them that they would likely run into him on many occasions. Most of the time, people would pass by him with as much notice as they would give to any member of the hospital staff.

Molly Hooper was the exception to this rule.

"Sherlock!" she gasped when he opened the door to the lab she was using, almost dropping the vials in her hands. Sherlock didn't miss the way her heart beat accelerated, sending a pink flush to her cheeks. "I didn't know you were coming in today. Are you working?"

"No, not today," Sherlock replied, taking a few steps into the lab and letting the door swing shut behind him. "I needed to come in to see you."

"_Me_?"

"Yes, you, Molly Hooper." Sherlock took a few more steps towards her, closing the distance between them. Loud and clear, he could hear her erratic heartbeat and the slight intake of breath as he came to a stop in front of her. "I need you to get me some more blood bags."

She opened and closed her mouth soundlessly a few times before she managed to speak. "More? But I just gave you some fresh ones a couple of weeks ago. I really can't keep giving them to you..."

"They're absolutely vital to my experiment." He watched her gaze as she looked away, clearly reluctant to give in and give him what he needed, and so he pressed on, "It is a matter of life and death."

She chewed on her lower lip, making an uncertain sound, and he knew that she was trying to find a way to say no, struggling to resist. He lowered his shoulders in a way that made him look smaller even though he easily towered over her, gave her a pleading expression, and lowered his voice to a softer, gentler tone. "Please, Molly," he said, and it was easy to see the way that the rarely used word drew her gaze back to him. "It would mean a great deal if you would do this, for me." He added the last two words as an afterthought, and he saw her resolve break.

"I... all right, I'll see what I can do."

"Would you? Thank you," Sherlock replied, giving her a large smile. "I'll be upstairs."

She smiled back at him, and he kept the expression on his face until she had turned away.

OoO

There was plenty that Sherlock could do to amuse himself while he waited for Molly to return with the blood. He had moved into one of the unoccupied labs upstairs – his usual one, so that Molly would know where to find him as soon as she was ready – and he was studying a slide beneath one of the microscopes when he heard footsteps heading towards the lab. Normally, he would pay no mind to it – there were plenty of other labs that weren't being used, and people tended to choose labs that were unoccupied rather than labs that already had someone using them. However, although he could only hear one set of footsteps, the person walking towards the lab had two scents.

The stronger scent was clearly that of Mike Stamford, which Sherlock could have deduced from the sound of his footsteps alone. The other was the same scent that Sherlock had caught not an hour ago at the park.

Mike rounded the corner, stepping into the room. "Oh, hello," he said as he caught sight of Sherlock, tossing an apparently empty cup of coffee into the rubbish bin by the door. "Just came to get my coat," he added in explanation, gesturing to where his coat was draped over the back of one of the chairs.

Sherlock peered at him over the top of the microscope, inhaling through his nose. The smell was definitely there; Mike had to have run into the werewolf that Sherlock had seen earlier. It was stronger than Sherlock would have expected it to be, however, had the two of them simply walked past each other and continued on their way. There had to be more to it than that.

"I would have thought you would have gone home by now," he commented, and Mike, ever talkative, responded in precisely the way that Sherlock had hoped he would.

"No, I ran into an old friend of mine on my walk."

"An old friend?"

"Yeah. John Watson; have I mentioned him? We trained together here before he went off and joined the army. Good to see him, it was. Nice to get back in touch with old mates, you know?"

Sherlock hummed absently, gaze flickering down briefly to the outline he could see in the pocket of Mike's coat. "Mike, can I borrow your phone?"

OoO

Less than an hour later, Sherlock was stepping up to the door of his flat on Baker Street with a box of blood bags (given to him with a half-hearted warning from Molly that she _really_ couldn't keep giving these to him whenever he wanted) and this John Watson's phone number, saved into his phone under the letter 'W' (for _Watson_, for _werewolf_, for _weird_). He held the box beneath one arm as he unlocked the door, returning his landlady's greeting and disappearing up the stairs before she had the chance to ask him what he was carrying.

He put all but one of the blood bags into the bottom of the fridge, pulled out a mug from the top shelf in the cupboard, and then he let his fangs extend so he could tear the last bag open with his teeth. He poured the contents into the mug, and then placed it in the microwave, drumming his fingertips along the countertop impatiently as he waited for it to finish.

Drinking blood from a bag was never the same as drinking from a live human being. It gave the same feeling of satisfaction, of fullness, as processed food did for a human – it could fill them up, but not in the same way that fresh, well prepared meals could. Drinking packaged blood didn't give the same rush that came with properly feeding. Heating the blood to body temperature was easily preferable to drinking it cold, but it would never quite be the same. Vampires weren't made to drink from a mug; their fangs would extend even if they did not need to bite anything, and they would click against the rim of the mug, making it awkward to drink from.

However, bagged blood was, as far as Sherlock was concerned, much more convenient, and infinitely preferable to the alternatives. There were too many risks involved in the more primitive task of hunting – risks of getting caught and exposed, of the chosen victim putting up a struggle, and, of course, the risk of draining them dry. Sherlock helped investigate and solve murders; he had no interest in being the cause of one. His brother had suggested on many occasions that Sherlock follow in his footsteps and find a regular feeder ("walking blood bag", Sherlock called them), but this was inconvenient in its own way. To a human, vampire venom was like a drug, and prolonged exposure could lead to addiction, mistaken for feelings of attachment, of love. Having to care for a human who wanted to go everywhere with him seemed even less desirable than feeding off a stranger in the streets.

The microwave beeped, and Sherlock took the mug from it, carrying it over to his desk and placing it down beside his laptop.

"John Watson" was a disgustingly common name, but, with the addition of the werewolf's mobile phone number and access to certain databases, it wasn't difficult to find the right one. The internet made it so much easier to find information on people than it had been in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially since people started putting every little detail about their life online. This John Watson seemed to be no exception to this rule; after a few minutes, Sherlock discovered that the man had a blog. He knew immediately that it was the right John Watson, as he gave the same details on the website that Sherlock had deduced when he had seen him ("_I am an experienced medical doctor recently returned from Afghanistan_"). In addition, the picture on the side was clearly the same man that Sherlock had seen earlier, although from an earlier time – the man in the picture had to be at least five years younger, not yet impacted by the traumas of war.

The blog itself was unbearably dull, holding only a few posts that could scarcely be considered posts and some odd comments by Harry Watson (_clearly related, likely a brother given the style of writing_) and Bill Murray (_old friend, served together, lost contact but eager to get back in touch_). It was almost laughable – the werewolf was unusual, interesting, and yet his blog was painful to look at. "Nothing happens to me", read one of the earlier posts, but that had to be a lie. Something very interesting had happened to this John Watson while he was away in Afghanistan, something far too interesting to be shared online.

Sherlock slammed the laptop lid shut, drained the rest of the blood, and then grabbed his coat as he walked out the door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"I see you've started writing in your blog," said Ella.

It wasn't a question, and so John saw no reason to reply. This was standard for his therapy sessions; Ella would prompt him to speak, and sometimes he would go as far as to offer a short, simple sentence in response. She would scribble something into her little black book, he would alternate between studying her writing upside-down and looking at the clock, and this would continue for the full hour until the session came to an end. Then they would confirm the time and date of next week's appointment, and he would limp out of the room feeling neither better nor worse than when he had come in.

He knew that therapy was a good thing and would probably help many people, and he knew that Ella was a good therapist. However, therapy was most beneficial for people who were comfortable with talking about their problems, and John simply did not fall into that category. Even before Afghanistan, when he was a kid, or while he was studying medicine at university, he had always been the sort of person to just bottle up his problems and hope they would go away on their own. He knew it wasn't the healthiest way to handle them, and there had been days when he had lost his temper and taken it out on someone who definitely did not deserve to be shouted at, but keeping it all to himself always seemed easier than finding someone to talk to. Serving in Afghanistan had not changed that, and so, unsurprisingly, spending an hour a week sitting in a room _not_ talking about his problems did not seem to make his life any better.

On top of that, it certainly didn't help that he couldn't exactly say "Got bitten by a werewolf, now constantly dreading the next full moon."

"There was a comment on one of your earlier posts from someone named Bill Murray," Ella pressed on. "Who is he?"

"He's the nurse who saved my life when I got shot," John replied, almost mechanically. It was true, but it wasn't the whole truth; like everything he told Ella about Afghanistan and getting shot, it left out the one very important detail that he would never be able to explain. Bill was the only person who knew exactly what had happened to John in Afghanistan. He had treated the bite as well as the bullet wound, and he was the reason John hadn't killed anyone the first time he shifted.

"You were friends before that happened, too?" Ella raised her tone at the end of the sentence, turning it into a question, and John decided to give her a response, even though it was a non-committal one.

"You tend to become close to the people you serve with, while you're there."

Ella hummed and scribbled something else down in her book (she had taken to positioning herself in a way that made it hard for him to see what she was writing, but he still managed to make out the word _distanced_) before continuing. "Are you going to get in contact with him?"

John shrugged. "Maybe."

"I think you should," said Ella. (_Of course you do_, thought John.) "You need to start getting in touch with other people again, starting with your friends. You'll find it easier to readjust if you have the support of people who care about you."

John looked up at the clock on the wall, and willed time to go faster.

OoO

The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky by the time John's therapy session ended. He took the Tube instead of a cab, because he knew he could not keep taking cabs everywhere if he didn't find himself a job, but it meant that his leg was aching when he was still several streets from his flat. He kept a firm grip on his cane and kept his eyes locked ahead of him, avoiding the gaze of any strangers who might give him the pitying looks that he hated.

There was an unpleasant scent in the air as he walked – the same smell that he had noticed when he was walking through Russell Square Gardens earlier that day, one that made him tense and uncomfortable. He wrinkled his nose in distaste, doing his best to ignore it as he continued on his way. Cities were never known to smell nice, but he had never noticed exactly how awful the scent was until his senses had become so enhanced. It was yet another thing he could add to his ever-growing list of reasons to hate his new life.

He was about two streets away from his flat when he became convinced he was being watched. He could feel it – the prickling sensation on the back of his neck, making him tense his shoulders and want to turn around. He tried to ignore it at first, continuing to walk as if nothing was the matter, but he couldn't shrug off the feeling that something was wrong. He couldn't push away the idea that he was being followed, even when he turned a corner and took a longer, more unusual route back to his flat.

He glanced over his shoulder a few times, at first pretending to stretch his neck or look up at the sky, later doing so suddenly in hopes of catching his stalker unaware and getting a proper look at them. Every time, he saw something move out of the corner of his eye, a flicker of a shadow too fast for him to be certain he saw anything at all, but by the time his head had turned fully there was nothing to be seen. It didn't reassure him that there was nothing there at all, however; with every missed glance, he began to feel more and more on edge, more convinced that there was something to be worried about.

He found himself longing for the sensation of his gun, pressing against the small of his back. Even if he wasn't going to fire it, it was reassuring to have it there, to know that, if the situation got bad enough, he would have a way of defending himself. Without it, he felt empty, defenceless even with the training he had in hand-to-hand combat. He found himself wondering how good a weapon his cane would make, if need be.

He turned into his street, slowing his pace a little. He tried to quieten his footsteps, to work out if he could hear another set behind him, but the street was almost eerily quiet. He stopped just before he had made it to the front door of his block of flats, and turned his head suddenly, looking around. There was no flicker of movement in the corner of his eye this time, and there wasn't a soul in sight.

In one of his earlier therapy sessions, Ella had told him about the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, and she had given him some pamphlets on the disorder that he had refused to read. He wondered if, perhaps, paranoia was a symptom of PTSD.

He turned to face the front again, and started as he found himself face to face with an unfamiliar man leaning against his front door.

The man's posture seemed relaxed, and he wasn't approaching John in a manner that seemed aggressive or dangerous, and yet there was something about him that made John's hair stand on end. He was waiting for John, which was made abundantly clear not only by the way that he was leaning against John's door, but also by the way he was looking at him. The man's eyes were bright, abnormally so, and John couldn't help but feel he was under scrutiny, as though the man was looking straight through him, _into_ him, in a way that made John want to shrink back or avert his gaze.

However, John was a soldier, and he was not willing to back down, especially not to some stranger who had apparently followed him home. He squared his shoulders and kept his chin up high, doing his best to stand up tall and put as little weight on his cane as he could manage. "Can I help you?"

The stranger pushed off the door to straighten up, looking John up and down in a way that made him feel exposed, before saying, in what had to have been an intentionally ominous tone, "I know what you are."

John's hand tightened on his cane, and he did his best to swallow down the panic that rose in his chest. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, and the stranger laughed.

"Oh, _please_ don't play dumb. I was hoping for a marginally intellectually stimulating conversation." John stared, doing his best to ignore the way his heart was pounding in his chest, and the stranger continued, "Although I suppose I shouldn't have expected that much from something like you."

"What the Hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, simply that you creatures aren't exactly known for your intellect."

John's grip tightened on his cane to the point where his knuckles were beginning to turn white. "Look, I don't know who are-"

"No," the stranger interrupted, "but you should know what I am." John's incomprehension must have shown on his face, because the stranger added, "I'd wager you've never met a vampire before."

John's initial reaction was to scoff, to think that this stranger was playing some sort of game with him. However, with the events of Afghanistan, and the way that his whole world had turned upside-down, it wasn't nearly as unbelievable as it should be. He inhaled deeply through his nose again in an attempt to calm himself down, and was struck by the same, vile scent, like the scent of a dead animal left to rot.

"What do you want?" he said, only just managing to keep his voice steady.

The stranger shrugged. "Amusement, mostly. Anything to relieve the boredom."

"Yeah, well, find it somewhere else. I'm not interested." John locked his gaze on the door behind the stranger, and tried to step forward, to pass him and go inside and forget that this confrontation ever happened. The stranger, however, did not move to give him room.

"No, but you are interesting. At least, you're more interesting than a human, although that isn't really saying a lot." John tried to push past him, but the man held his ground, and continued, "Do you know you're the only werewolf in London?"

The word made him tense, and he resisted the urge to look around, to see if anyone was near enough to hear their conversation. He knew it didn't really matter, as he doubted anyone would believe a word of it if they did hear. If he'd walked past two men having a conversation like this, he definitely wouldn't have believed a word of it, had things been different. When he made no effort to respond, the stranger continued, "There's a good reason for that. Vampires are not nearly as territorial as you are, but that doesn't mean they would just leave you roaming around the city."

"Is that a threat?"

"Of course not. That would imply that I have some desire to kill you. I assure you, I despise the taste of wolf blood."

"How reassuring."

"Consider it a friendly warning," the stranger continued, as if John hadn't spoken.

"Yeah, I can take care of myself, thanks."

"If you encountered a vampire? I wouldn't hold out much hope. They'd have their fangs in your neck before you had time to bark."

"Great." John made an attempt to push past the stranger – vampire, he corrected in his head – and this time, the vampire allowed it. John pulled his key out of his pocket, sliding it into the lock. His hand, usually trembling, was perfectly still.

"I can see you're not going to listen to me," said the vampire.

"Great observation."

"It's your own choice, even if it is an idiotic one. It hardly concerns me if you turn up dead in a week."

"Wonderful. Are you done?"

There was a brief pause before the man behind him made a sound of affirmation. "Unless you get killed in the next twenty-four hours, I imagine I will be seeing you again, John Watson."

John's shoulders tensed further, his grip tightening on the door handle, before he turned around. "How the Hell do you know-" he began, but the vampire had already disappeared from sight.

* * *

**Author's Note**: I'd just like to say a quick thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited and reviewed this story so far. Any comments are greatly appreciated!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four **

Sherlock was right in saying that he would see the werewolf again, but only because he made sure that this was the case. With no interesting cases for him to solve (the criminal class of London was such a disappointment), he found that he was easily distractible, constantly seeking entertainment in whatever form he could find it (be that experiments with body parts from the morgue, or puzzles with a Sudoku cube). He caught onto John Watson's scent when he passed the entrance to the Tube a few days after their first encounter, confirming what he had already known would be the case – the werewolf had not done the wise thing and left London in search of a new location less overrun by vampires. It also meant, however, that the werewolf was yet to be attacked by one of those vampires, so perhaps he was not quite as vulnerable as Sherlock had initially believed.

Either way, it meant that the werewolf was still around, and that meant that Sherlock had a way of amusing himself for the time being.

OoO

The second time Sherlock confronted John was shortly after the werewolf had left his flat in the morning, over a week after their first encounter. Judging by the route he was taking, he was on his way to the Tube, although it was impossible for Sherlock to tell to where the werewolf was heading without more data. Sherlock came up behind him as he was walking down the street, easily catching up with the man's limping strides, and he sped up his last couple of steps so that he came up beside him suddenly and without warning. "If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead."

John stiffened in apparent surprise – Sherlock watched his shoulders tense and his grip tighten on his cane – before relaxing, in a way that suggested the action was forced. "Good thing you don't want to kill me, then."

"This merely proves my point, you realise. Should you be unfortunate enough to encounter a vampire who is more murderous than I am, you would be dead in a matter of seconds."

"I told you, I can take care of myself."

"So far, you've only given me reason to doubt that. I was able to sneak up on you without difficulty."

"Maybe I just knew it was you."

"I doubt that."

John didn't seem to have a response to that, and for a good moment both of them walked in silence before he spoke again. "You knew my name, last time we met. How?"

A smirk grew over Sherlock's face, and he turned his head away to hide it. "Mike Stamford."

"Mike told you about me?"

"Obviously. Surely you know the man well enough to know how open he can be."

John hummed. "Right, well, if you're going to stalk me, you might as well return the favour and tell me who you are."

"If I were stalking you, I'd have no reason to tell you anything. After all, isn't it beneficial for a 'stalker' to have a sense of anonymity?" John gave him a look, and he suppressed a grin, coming to a stop at the front of the entrance to the Tube. "This would be where you're heading, yes?"

John glanced at the entrance as if he hadn't realised how much distance they had just covered, and then looked back at Sherlock. "Right," he said, turning to head down the stairs. Sherlock let him get a few steps away before calling out behind him.

"The name's Sherlock Holmes," he said, and then he turned and walked away.

OoO

The third time they met was a couple of days later, one afternoon as John was on his way home from grocery shopping (evident from the plastic bags he was carrying). This time, when Sherlock came up beside him, John didn't flinch or stiffen in surprise. He merely glanced over at him and said, "Is this going to be a regular thing?"

Sherlock shrugged his shoulders. "If there's nothing better to do, perhaps. You heard me coming this time."

"Smelled you, more like. I take it you're responsible for the foul smell in the air."

"You're not much better, you realise. You smell like wet dog."

"Charming, you are." John paused for a moment, before continuing, "I looked you up on the internet. Found your website, The Science of Deduction."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows and looked over at him. "What did you think?"

John gave him a look. "You said you could identify a software designer by his tie and an airline pilot by his left thumb," he said in a tone of voice that portrayed scepticism. "You can't really, though. I mean, it's not clever observations like you say it is – it's because you're a vampire, isn't it?"

Sherlock frowned at him. "I can tell you're a military man because of your haircut and your posture. I can tell that you were stationed in Afghanistan from your suntan and the way that it stops at the wrists, and I can tell you were wounded in action, but your limp is psychosomatic, from the way that you walk. Judging by your association with Mike Stamford, it would not be a grand leap to assume you're a doctor – an army doctor, obviously – and you likely studied with him at St Bart's. This is all things I noticed the first time I saw you, not deductions that have been made over a period of time. Yes, my senses are enhanced, but none of this is invisible to the human eye. Humans are just idiots."

For a moment, John appeared too surprised to respond, and he merely blinked, before breathing, "That's amazing." He didn't give Sherlock enough time to formulate a response (which was a good thing, as Sherlock found himself momentarily speechless by the unusual compliment) before he asked, "How can you tell it was Afghanistan and not anywhere else?"

Sherlock smirked. "Well, I would have guessed either Afghanistan or Iraq, but finding your website last week helped."

OoO

These sorts of conversations did become a more common occurrence over the following couple of weeks, to the point where John almost seemed to expect it (even though Sherlock knew, logically, that he couldn't, as there was no consistent pattern to the days when Sherlock would meet with him). Additionally, John seemed increasingly intrigued by Sherlock, asking him questions about vampires in general, and about Sherlock himself. After Sherlock mentioned that he consulted for the police, John took an interest in the crimes that he investigated, and the means by which he solved them.

John, Sherlock was quick to discover, was more unusual than Sherlock had thought. Not only was he atypical for a werewolf, but he was also unusual in the way that he spoke to Sherlock. He didn't seem offended when Sherlock verbalised his deductions; he didn't tell him to go away or call him a freak. Instead, he would say things like "Amazing" and "Fantastic", and he would prompt Sherlock into elaborating, explaining how he had worked it all out. Sherlock had never had anyone he could really show off to before who didn't respond negatively, and although the compliments were predictable, each seemed to send an unusual feeling of pride through his body.

Occasionally, these conversations would occur over text, after Sherlock revealed that he had taken John's number from Mike's phone. The confession was initially met with dissatisfaction at the invasion of privacy, but this didn't seem to last very long, and then they were having conversations at three o'clock in the morning whenever John wasn't asleep. At this time of night, John seemed to be more open, more willing to answer Sherlock's questions. This was beneficial, as Sherlock was able to gather information about werewolves that he would not have been able to learn otherwise, and Sherlock was always happy to add any interesting information to his Mind Palace.

What was interesting was that Sherlock found himself beginning to look forward to the days when he would meet with John. As he consulted on cases (Detective Inspector Lestrade requested his assistance on a couple of cases that were too simple for his liking in the weeks that followed, and he was bored enough to offer his help) or made deductions, he found himself thinking about telling John about them in a few days' time, anticipating John's reactions with eagerness. He certainly would not consider John a friend, because vampires and werewolves could not be friends, and Sherlock Holmes did not have friends either way, but he couldn't deny the odd feeling in his stomach when he and John spoke.

OoO

As the full moon drew closer, Sherlock noticed the way John became increasingly agitated. Although he had become used to Sherlock's presence, unsurprised whenever he arrived, Sherlock noticed that he had become tenser as of late. The tone of conversations changed – John asked fewer open questions to keep the conversation going, and he wouldn't linger for even a moment when they arrived at his front door or the entrance to the Tube. He stopped calling Sherlock amazing, and started telling him to shut up whenever he made a deduction on any slightly personal matter.

Sherlock brought up the topic a week before the night in question. "Where are you planning on spending the full moon?"

It wasn't a personal question, but it caused John to stiffen nonetheless. "I don't really think that's any of your business, is it?"

"It could be."

"No, it couldn't. I might have self-control now, but if I met you during the full moon, I'd probably kill you."

Sherlock snorted. "You couldn't, even if you wanted to. You'd have the benefit of your size, yes, but you'd be acting on instincts. You wouldn't be able to anticipate my actions and respond to them. I'd have subdued you before you even had the chance to hurt me."

"You're so convinced that I wouldn't hurt you. I'd rather not put it to the test."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If you say so. I don't want to know where you'll be so I can come find you, I assure you. Your smell is bad enough while you're human; I'd rather not come anywhere near you while you're a wolf. No, I want to know because I don't trust you to have found somewhere secure enough, and it would be a huge inconvenience to have an oversized dog roaming the streets of London. Humans are idiots, but I'm sure they're not quite stupid enough to ignore something like that."

John glared slightly, evidently unimpressed with the implied accusation that he would not be able to control himself, but Sherlock knew he wasn't wrong. John might have a remarkable amount of self-control so as to not have tried to attack Sherlock yet, but it didn't mean that he was going to be able to control himself under the influence of the full moon. After a moment, John answered, "Epping Forest. It's about half an hour outside of London by car; it should be far enough away for me to not hurt anyone."

Sherlock scoffed. "Not likely. You realise there are several visitor centres in the forest, yes? Even if half an hour was far enough away from London to avoid you causing harm to the people that live here, you're still far too close to people that you could hurt. This is ignoring the fact that you have all night to get back to London, and you creatures are fast."

"Do you have a better suggestion, then?"

Sherlock was silent for a moment in thought before he responded, "My brother's estate has a basement with a steel door, and chains if need be. I am absolutely certain that it could hold you."

John barked out a humourless laugh. "As if I'm going to spend the night locked up in a vampire's basement. I'm not an idiot, you know."

"Could have fooled me." John gave him a look, and Sherlock continued, "My brother despises getting his hands dirty. I assure you, you would be in no danger. It would merely ensure that you don't pose any risks to any unsuspecting humans."

"I think I'll pass, thanks," John replied as they turned to head up to his flat. "I'll find somewhere far enough away, trust me."

"I'm not holding out much hope," said Sherlock, and John turned to walk through his front door without a response. They didn't hear from each other in a few days.

OoO

It was a little after four o'clock in the morning, two days before the full moon, when Sherlock received a text.

Does your offer about your brother's  
basement still stand? - JW

* * *

**Author's Note**: I go back to university next week, at which point posting will probably become more sporadic. I'll do what I can to write and post a chapter a week, but I apologise in advance if I suddenly disappear for several weeks.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five **

John had very few memories of his first full moon. He had been in Afghanistan at the time, in the hospital ward beginning his recovery from the bullet wound to his shoulder. He could remember feeling tired, willing to try to get some sleep, and then he could remember waking up groggily, on the floor, several hours later. In between, the only thing he could remember was being in pain. Bill Murray had been able to fill him in on the details later.

Bill had been the nurse taking care of him when the change had happened. John had cried out in pain first; that was what had caught Bill's attention. The logical conclusion that Bill had drawn was that the problem was his shoulder, and he had been preparing to give John some more pain relief when John's body had started convulsing. It had looked as though it might have been a seizure at first, but Bill hadn't had time to give John anything for a seizure before he heard the first crack – the sound of John's bones breaking.

It was only natural that the sight of John's body twisting and contorting into shapes that should not have been humanly possible would send Bill into a state of shock, rendering him temporarily unable to help. Bill had expressed great guilt about this afterwards, when he was telling John about it – he had been able to hear John's cries of pain, and he felt guilty that he had done nothing to stop them. John didn't hold it against him, of course. Even the best nurses couldn't have been prepared for the sight.

There were stories, in Afghanistan – things they would tell each other when they lay awake at night. There were stories about wolves with dangerous bites, of men who suffered strange diseases as a result of being bitten. They would laugh at these stories, tell jokes about werewolves, but other than that, it would scarcely cross their minds. No one would really expect to see anything as fantastical as a human shifting into the form of an animal. However, with John's body twisting and changing, hair growing out of his skin, there was only so much that could be dismissed as a hallucination brought on by the war.

Bill explained that it was the sound that John made next – not a cry of pain, but a howl – that spurred him into action. He injected John with a sedative, and that seemed to calm him while the transformation was still occurring, but only a little. He ended up injecting him with more after the transformation was complete, with difficulty, and he managed to use enough to knock John out for the rest of the night. The amount he used could have been enough to kill a normal person, which explained why he looked so relieved when John came around late the following morning, sore and disoriented but otherwise unharmed.

So far, that was the only full moon that John had experienced, and he had been plagued with nightmares ever since of how he would cope without the sedation.

OoO

Sherlock's brother, Mycroft Holmes, sent a sleek black car to pick John up at about five o'clock in the afternoon leading up to the night of the full moon. John had been waiting for it for the entire day; he had been unable to focus or distract himself, finding himself constantly checking the time and the position of the sun in the sky. He had scarcely slept the night before, dreaming of pain and howls, of bones breaking and of human bodies being torn limb from limb. By the time the car pulled up on the side of the road, John was ready for the day to just be over.

He took with him a bag of clean clothes, knowing he would want something to change into when the night was over. The driver climbed out of the car when he stepped onto the footpath, opening the back door for him without a word. Inside, there was a young woman, pretty, who didn't so much as look up at him when he climbed in. She didn't smell like death like Sherlock did, but when she moved, her hair fell away from her neck to reveal two clean puncture wounds.

She made no effort to talk to him, and after a minute, John broke the silence. "Hello."

It took her a moment before she tore her gaze from the phone in her hands to look up at him, smiling. "Hi," she said, before promptly returning her gaze to her phone.

"What's your name, then?"

"Anthea."

John didn't miss the way she seemed to hesitate, to draw out the 'A' sound in a way that could be seen as um-ing and ah-ing. "Is that your real name?"

The woman smiled and replied, "No," and John's attention was drawn once again to the neat puncture wounds in her neck. He was beginning to contemplate the politeness of asking if she was a human or a vampire when his phone vibrated, and he shifted to pull it out of his pocket, opening up the latest message.

Don't bother making conversation  
with the walking blood bag.  
SH

John frowned, but it wasn't difficult to work out to whom Sherlock was referring. He glanced at the woman who was not called Anthea out of the corner of his eye, and then typed out his response.

Can you see me?

The reply came through quickly, followed by another, and it was easy to fall into a conversation when he was getting nowhere with the one in the car.

No, but I know the way you  
react to the presence of an  
aesthetically pleasing female.  
SH

She's not going to want much  
to do with you. Vampire venom  
tends to have that effect on  
people.  
SH

What do you mean?

Vampire venom is like a drug  
for humans. Gives them a high  
and causes an attachment to form  
after prolonged exposure.  
Evolutionary advantage of having  
our prey coming back for more.  
SH

You get all the evolutionary  
advantages. What's the benefit  
of turning into a wolf once a month?

You have got the advantage of  
enhanced strength and senses,  
though it does not surprise me  
that you don't care for that.  
SH

Enhanced strength and senses,  
and once a month I turn into  
a monster with no control. I'd  
rather be human.

No point in complaining. It won't  
change it.  
SH

I doubt my brother will want to  
talk to you, but if he does, please  
ask him about his diet. Or call  
him whatever name you please.  
SH

I take it you and him don't get  
on?

He's a fat git who thinks he  
can control everything. He  
doesn't exactly get along with  
anyone.  
SH

Unimportant. You probably  
won't meet him anyway.  
SH

Walking Blood Bag can chain you  
up.  
SH

No. No chains.

You said it was a steel door. I'll  
be fine without chains.

Suit yourself. The option stands  
should you change your mind.  
SH

"Sir?"

John looked up from his phone, finger hovering over the keys to type out a message, before he realised that the car had pulled to a stop on the driveway to a large house. Well, the word "house" didn't quite seem adequate, especially in comparison to the army bed sit that John had been stuck living in. "Mansion" would be a better word. It looked like something out of a movie; two storeys high and with more rooms than anyone would ever need. It took all of John's willpower not to gape at the sight of it.

"We're here," said Not-Anthea, as the driver climbed out of the car and opened the door for John. It felt wrong, to be standing on a driveway of a place like this dressed as casually as he was, but he did his best to not let himself look insecure or uncertain. Sherlock had offered him a place to spend the full moon; it wasn't as though he was actually out of place there. It was only for one night, and he was about to spend the entirety of that night in the basement of this building as an animal who wouldn't remember anything the following morning.

The driver stayed by the car, but Not-Anthea led him to the house, and John did his best not to stare as she unlocked the front door, gesturing for him to step inside. Unsurprisingly, the interior was just as nice, if not nicer, as the outside of the house, and all he could see was the front hallway. The floor was shiny, enough for him to be able to see his reflection in it, and he wondered if he should take his shoes off so as to not dirty it. He decided against it as Not-Anthea walked past him without doing so herself, and he followed her halfway down the shiny hallway to a door on the left.

This door was unlocked not with a key, but with a four-digit code, typed in to a pin-pad next to the wall. John resisted the urge to stare as she unlocked it, although she pressed the buttons too fast for him to be able to tell what numbers she pressed. The door swung open to reveal a narrow staircase, leading into the darkness below. "This way," she said, and John followed her down, careful not to trip until she turned on the light switch at the bottom.

The basement was nowhere near as clean or as well-furbished as the hallway upstairs. Mycroft's assistant led him down the narrow hall to the last door at the end – as Sherlock had said, this one was made of steel, and it slid open automatically when the woman inserted a key into the hole on the wall beside it. The room behind it looked incredibly bare in contrast to the automatic door that led to it – it was empty except for iron chains attached to the far wall, and lit only by a dull light bulb on the roof. "Why on Earth does your boss have a place like this beneath his house?" he said, but Not-Anthea did not reply, instead simply standing to the side and letting John enter.

"I will come and get you at sunrise," she said as he walked past her. "Will you need anything else?"

"No," John answered, and then, on second thoughts, added, "Actually, could I get you to take these for me?" He handed her the plastic bag full of clothing, which she took, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket and added it to the pile. "Probably better that I don't have anything in the room I might destroy." He cracked a half-smile, but she did not mirror it.

"Is that all?"

John's smile faded, and he looked around the room once more before nodding his head. "Yeah."

He saw her slide the key into the wall again and turn it, and the door slid shut between them.

Once alone, John spent a short while pacing the perimeter of the basement, getting used to the size and shape of it and ensuring that there was no way that he could get out once he had shifted. It didn't surprise him that there wasn't. He paced from one wall to the other, counting the number of steps between them as he waited for the sun to set in the sky. Without a watch or windows, he had no way of telling how late it was, but he could feel himself becoming increasingly restless and agitated the later it got. He had no way of telling if that was the wolf preparing for the shift, or simply his own anxiety, but he couldn't help but feel like it was the former.

When he felt like it was late enough, he undressed, folding his clothes neatly into a pile on the floor even though he doubted anything in this basement would be neat by the time the sun rose again. Still, at least if they were on the floor they had a chance of still being in one piece by the morning. He shivered at the cool air against his skin, sitting down in the middle of the basement and wrapping his arms around himself. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and waited.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **This chapter contains mentions of drug use. Please avoid the middle section if you are worried about how this might affect you.

On an unrelated note, thank you all so much for all the response this fic has been given so far. It means a lot.

* * *

**Chapter Six**

The change began when the clock struck midnight.

John couldn't see what time it was, of course, but he could tell when it was about to start. Ever since he had been bitten, it had felt as though the Wolf had made a home somewhere in John's mind. It wasn't always active but it was always there. It would awaken when he was angry, or when he was afraid, and as the full moon grew closer, it would wake more easily. It felt as though it could influence him, influence the way he responded to different situations, and the closer to the full moon it got, the harder it became to ignore. Now, as the moon rose into the sky, it felt as though the Wolf was pacing in his mind, growing stronger, more restless.

John could tell when the change was about to begin, because inside his mind, the Wolf howled, and the pain started less than a minute later.

When the bullet had torn through his shoulder in Afghanistan, it had hurt. It hadn't at first, for a moment; he was in shock, and it wasn't until he heard someone yell his name that he realised that he had been hit. He had seen the blood on his leg first (not his, but he hadn't known that at the time) and he had gone to move, to cover the wound in a rush of adrenaline. The pain had started the moment he realised why he couldn't move his arm. It had been excruciating. His shoulder burned as though it was on fire, and he was sure that he was going to die, begging a God that he wasn't sure existed to let him stay alive. It had been all he could think about – he hadn't noticed the sound of footsteps racing towards him, hardly registering the pain of a bite.

At that point in time, it was the worst pain he had ever experienced. It was _nothing_ compared to shifting.

John could feel every bone in his body breaking and reshaping, twisting and contorting into unnatural shapes and positions. He could hear each snap and crunch, over the sound of his screams and cries in the silence of the basement. Each shout echoed off the walls, ringing in his ears; every sound seemed too loud, too overwhelming. His skin pulled and stretched over the reforming bones, itching as fur began to lengthen and grow. When his spinal cord snapped, he let out a yell, and then, for one blissful moment, there was nothing, no pain below the break. Then the bones joined together again, and the pain started afresh.

It felt as though he should have been weak, when it finally finished. It felt as though he should have collapsed on the cold basement floor without the strength to get up, every muscle in his body burning as if he had run a marathon the day before. At very least, it felt as though he should need at least a few minutes to recover, to lie there and pant until the pain of changing faded away.

None of this happened. The Wolf was alive, and awake, and did not want to be trapped in a basement where he could not run free.

Then he inhaled through his nose and was struck by the overwhelming scent of one pale, dark haired vampire, filling the basement prison with his mark, and that made the Wolf very, very angry indeed.

OoO

**September, 1888**

"You really must be more careful, brother."

Sherlock pulled away from the neck of the young female he had chosen for that evening, blood running down his chin. The woman had scarcely enough blood left in her body to stay conscious, and she swayed even in Sherlock's grip. Granted, she hadn't been particularly steady on her feet to start off with. Sherlock had been able to smell the heroin in her system before he'd let his fangs extend from his mouth; it had been what drew him to her to start. By now, she would be riding the waves of pleasure from his venom, regarding she was still conscious enough to experience it.

He lifted a finger to his chin and wiped up the blood that had spilled from his mouth, glaring at his brother as he did. "I hardly need to do anything, _brother_," he replied, spitting the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. He let go of the human, letting her collapse onto the cold pavement, and he lifted his finger to his lips, sucking the blood off.

"You're being careless, Sherlock," said Mycroft, glancing down at the nearly unconscious woman before looking back to his brother. "You're risking exposure, not to mention the damage you are doing to yourself."

"Well, that's your problem." Already, he was beginning to feel the pleasant buzz of heroin. It wasn't the cocaine that he craved, but it was definitely satisfying. "If you are so afraid of exposure, you can clean up my mess."

"It's not simply exposure that I am concerned for." Once again, he glanced down at the woman, and Sherlock followed his gaze. It appeared that he had not taken as much blood as he usually did – she was unconscious, but he could still see the shallow rise and fall of her chest, and he could still hear her weak heartbeat.

"She's hardly worth your concern, Mycroft," he said, even though he knew that was not what his brother had been talking about. "She won't remember any of this even if she does survive the night. She will blame the heroin; she was near to falling into unconsciousness before I approached her."

"I don't believe that was the heroin."

Sherlock frowned, staring at his brother in confusion. Was his mind working slower than usual? Why was he failing to make sense of what his brother was saying? Mycroft was giving him a knowing look, and Sherlock couldn't understand what that meant.

Was the ground getting closer?

"Oh, you bastard," he spat as his side hit the footpath. He tried to push himself back up again, and found he didn't have the strength.

"Slow acting sedative," Mycroft explained as he struggled against the exhaustion already pulling at his muscles and his eyelids. "I knew you would be likely to feed from her, and I knew I could not inject you with it directly. Admittedly, I feared that you might smell it on her, but I doubted you would recognise the smell over the heroin."

Sherlock tried to spit another insult, another cuss word, but found his mouth would not co-operate. He hadn't experienced exhaustion since he was human, when he still required the occasional night's sleep to operate properly. Darkness licked at the corners of his vision, and he tried to force his eyes open, to glare at his brother, who was staring down at him.

"It's for your own good, Sherlock," Mycroft said, and then the darkness consumed him.

OoO

Sherlock had no idea how much time had passed when he finally woke up again, muscles feeling stiff and unused. His face was pressed into cold, hard ground, and he thought for a moment that he was still on the pavement where he had fallen, before he realised that it was too quiet for him to still be in the streets. He blinked several times as his eyes focussed to the dull light, and he let out a slight groan as he tried to move. He managed to turn his head so that his cheek rested against the ground, and he found himself face to face with a pair of familiar, shiny, black shoes.

"You drugged me," he slurred, tongue feeling heavy in his mouth.

"Stating the obvious, Sherlock," Mycroft replied in that condescending tone of voice that Sherlock had always despised. "You must still be coming around."

"You had no right to drug me."

"As I said, brother dear, it's for your own benefit. You certainly aren't going to lower the amount of blood you drink by yourself."

Sherlock let out a humourless laugh. "So this is your way of making me do so? Sedating me so that you can lecture me while I am unable to run away?"

"Of course not. You'd not listen to me regardless of whether or not you can leave. No, Sherlock, I believe I need to wean you off of it."

Expression caught somewhere between a frown and a scowl, Sherlock managed (with some difficulty) to push himself into a sitting position so that he could properly take in his surroundings. He didn't recognise the room that they were in. It was completely bare, except for what looked to be chains, attached to one wall. The door was sealed shut. He looked back at Mycroft and said, incredulously, "You're planning on locking me up?"

"It's the only way I can ensure you won't feed more than I allow you," said Mycroft. "You will get your next meal when the heroin is completely out of your system."

He walked past Sherlock, heading towards the door. The younger vampire watched him go, watched him unlock the door with a large key, and saw the long, narrow hallway behind it. This was good – it wasn't a maze that he would have to navigate. Pushing past his brother would be easy, and then he would be free.

He pushed himself to his feet suddenly, and did not manage even a single step before he found himself back on the floor. Mycroft glanced over his shoulder.

"You'll have your strength back in another hour or so," he said. "However, you may be weaker than usual while your body becomes accustomed to feeding less than you're used to."

The door fell shut behind him, and Sherlock could hear the sound of the lock clicking, trapping him inside.

OoO

**Present Day**

John's entire body ached when he came around the following morning. He knew what had happened, of course – there was no moment when he woke, still groggy from sleep, when he didn't remember where he was or why he was there - but the memories of the night were fuzzy and unclear. He could remember feelings - the physical pain, and the emotional rage – but other than that, the night was a black spot in his memory.

He groaned as he pushed himself upright so that he could survey his surroundings. Aside from the pain in his muscles from the shift itself, he could see his body was littered with bruises and scratches. It took him a moment to work out how they had happened – the scratches on the walls told him that he had tried to escape, and he had probably pushed himself against the wall or the door in an attempt to do so. He could remember feeling trapped, almost claustrophobic, which came as no surprise.

His shirt had not survived the night – he could see pieces of fabric strewn about the basement everywhere. His trousers were torn at the bottom of one leg, and the other had one messy tear that looked like it had come from a sharp claw, but they were still wearable (not in public, certainly, but at least he could preserve some of his dignity when Mycroft's assistant came to find him). He put them on with difficulty, groaning with pain as his muscles protested. He picked up the shreds that were once his shirt, glad he had thought to wear one that he wouldn't mind losing too much, and then he collapsed back onto the floor and leaned back against the wall.

The time it took for Mycroft's assistant to come down was long enough for John to begin to drift off again, and he started awake at the sound of the door. The woman stepped in – John felt so worn out, he couldn't even remember her name – and handed him his clean pile of clothing. She turned away while he dressed, and turned back when he told her he was finished. Now that he got a better look at her, he noticed that she looked paler than she did yesterday, and with an oddly serene expression on her face. John could remember what Sherlock had said yesterday about vampire venom, and he wondered if, beneath her hair, the marks on her neck were fresher.

"I'm to take you home," she said. "Ready to go?"

John nodded his head weakly, and followed her back up the stairs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven **

Survived the night?  
SH

The text came through just as the car was pulling up to the side of the road outside John's flat, but John didn't check his phone until after he was inside. He was exhausted, and he wanted nothing more than to collapse onto his bed and sleep for at least a day, despite the fact that he had been incapable of sleeping through the night ever since he returned home from Afghanistan. It was tempting to ignore the phone that vibrated in his pocket, but he pulled it out after a moment to see if it was anything important, and once he had checked it he decided he might as well respond.

More or less.

I didn't promise that you  
would have a pleasant night.  
I merely guaranteed that it  
would keep you from doing  
any damage.  
SH

Yeah, thanks. The wolf didn't  
like being locked up, especially  
not where it smelt like vampire.

Intriguing that you talk about 'the  
wolf' as if it's a separate entity.  
SH

I'm sure my brother's scent is  
quite disgusting. It doesn't surprise  
me that you would not enjoy it.  
SH

Wasn't your brother. Smelt like you.

Is that so? Interesting.  
SH

Why?

Why is it interesting, or why does  
my brother's basement smell like  
me?  
SH

Both, I guess.

It smells like me because I have  
spent some time in there in the  
past. It is interesting because  
that was some time ago. I'd not  
realised my scent would linger.  
SH

Why were you spending time in  
a basement?

Hardly an interesting story. I'd  
much rather hear about your  
night.  
SH

Not interesting either. Long,  
tiring and painful.

How long does shifting take?  
SH

I don't know. A little while.

Interesting. Well, you may be  
reassured to know that it  
becomes easier with time.  
SH

And you'd be an expert on  
werewolves, would you?

I know that those I've met in the  
past have shifted in response to  
my scent, and that could not have  
taken them more than a matter  
of seconds.  
SH

Great. So, maybe in a few years'  
time I won't be in so much pain  
once a month.

Perhaps you should try  
shifting of your own accord. If you  
do it enough I'm sure your body  
will become faster at it.  
SH

Hah, funny. Easy for you to say, you're  
not the one who would be in  
excruciating pain.

For a while, yes, but it would be more  
beneficial for you in the long run.  
SH

Yeah, no.

You're being foolish. This is logical.  
You would benefit from being able  
to control yourself.  
SH

I can control myself fine.

And you could control yourself  
more if you could shift on  
command.  
SH

I'm tired. Goodnight.

John.  
SH

John didn't reply, tossing his phone down on the bed and closing his eyes. With the exhaustion pulling at his mind, it didn't take him long to drift off into unconsciousness.

OoO

In some stories, there is a rule that vampires cannot enter a building without being verbally invited in by the owner. This is incorrect, which was convenient for Sherlock, because it would be very difficult to search for evidence in a house of a potential murderer if he had to ask that potential murderer for permission to enter. However, when it came to his older brother, Sherlock had always wished that he could keep the man out of his flat simply by saying, "No, you cannot come in."

He had expected Mycroft to turn up after he allowed John to use his basement, presumably seeing it as an invitation for communication with Sherlock. He would probably see it as a favour that Sherlock should owe him, and he would undoubtedly have some dull job for Sherlock to do to repay him. However, Sherlock had held onto hope that he might not have to speak to Mycroft for at least a few days before the man inevitably thought it was time to stick his oversized nose into Sherlock's business.

Quite unfortunately, Mycroft's oversized nose ended up poking through the door of the Baker Street flat only half an hour or so after John had decided to stop replying to Sherlock's texts. Sherlock could hear him when his landlady opened the door downstairs (perhaps he would not be able to escape Mycroft even if vampires could not enter a building without permission, because Mrs Hudson was far too open and far too trusting). He briefly considered jumping out the window to avoid a conversation, but Mycroft reached the top of the stairs before he had time to execute his plan.

"Really, Sherlock," he said as he stepped through the doorway, looking down his nose at the state of the flat. "Does Mrs Hudson appreciate you making such a mess of the place?"

Sherlock picked up his violin case and brought it over to his usual chair, sitting down and pulling out the bow and a cloth so that he could clean it. The instrument was not in need of a clean, but if he was watching his hand move over the bow, he did not have to look at his brother. "Let's make this quick, Mycroft," he said. "You're not here on a social visit; you're here to ask a favour in return for letting John use your basement. You undoubtedly have a job for me in your file." He pointed to the folder beneath Mycroft's arm with his bow before returning to cleaning it.

"Ah, yes, John Watson," said Mycroft, as if he had only paid attention to a portion of what Sherlock said. "An unusual character, isn't he? Interesting that you've chosen to befriend a werewolf."

"He's not my friend, Mycroft."

"Of course not. You merely offered him a place to spend the full moon out of boredom, did you?"

"It was convenient. Surely you wouldn't have preferred having to cover the tracks of a bloodthirsty werewolf."

Mycroft hummed. "Do be careful, Sherlock," he said. "Let's not forget what happened to Victor."

Sherlock looked up from his bow to glare at his brother. "Hurry up, Mycroft. What is it that you want me to do?"

Mycroft moved over to the table at the side of the room, placing the folder down on top of it. "There have been reports of a hunter making his way through Britain," he explained. "He was last sighted in York, and I believe he may be gradually heading towards London. I would like you to track him, and ensure that he does not pose a risk here."

"A hunter? Dull."

"Maybe so, Sherlock, but I'm sure you are aware of the risk that hunters pose to us."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If he arrives in London, I will take care of it. Go home, Mycroft. Don't you have a country to run?"

Mycroft opened his mouth to respond, and Sherlock quickly lifted his violin to its place beneath his chin, running the bow over the strings in a way to produce a screeching noise to drown out the sound of his voice. After a couple of minutes of this, Mycroft took the hint, and he turned and headed back out the door.

OoO

Sherlock didn't hear from John at all for the rest of the day, so he made sure to head over to John's flat bright and early the following morning, in order to catch him before he headed off to wherever his destination was that day. He arrived there around the same time that he usually did, around the time that John usually left his house. He knew John didn't have a job (the times he came home, for one thing, were too irregular, and John wouldn't be living in a tiny little army bedsit if he was earning money rather than living on an army pension), but yet he was a man of routine, which came as no surprise given his military history. John's day started at the same time every day, like clockwork, and so, when John failed to come out of his flat for ten whole minutes after his usual time, it struck Sherlock as incredibly odd. He wondered briefly if John had left earlier than usual, but the scent on the footpath outside of the door was too weak to be new. So, Sherlock decided that there were more productive things he could be doing than standing outside waiting.

He pressed the buzzer for the doorbell, waited two seconds, and then pressed it again twice for good measure. When this failed to bring John downstairs, he knocked three times on the door, and then pressed the buzzer again. He repeated this twice before the door finally opened, revealing one very frustrated-looking John Watson. He was still dressed in his pyjamas, hair messy, and despite how late it was in the morning, he was still looking tired. He glared at Sherlock as he opened the door. "You know, when someone doesn't answer the door the first time you ring the bell, it might mean that they're sleeping, and probably want to be left doing just that."

"You never sleep this late," Sherlock stated. "You should have been awake by now."

John gave him a look. "When you have all of your bones broken and restructured twice in one night, you can talk to me."

"That was two nights ago. You had all of yesterday to sleep it off."

John let out a frustrated sigh, lifting a hand to his face and rubbing his eyes. "I'm not going to get any more sleep this morning, am I?" he muttered. "Right. I need tea."

He turned to make his way back up into his flat, and that was a good enough invitation for Sherlock to follow.

John's flat was scarcely good enough to be considered a flat, but Sherlock hadn't had high expectations. He scanned around the few rooms briefly, taking in everything he could in a short space of time. The bed was unmade, but John was already moving over to fix that up as Sherlock took in the room. This was undoubtedly a habit from his army days, and the fact that it wasn't made already confirmed what Sherlock had already hypothesized – John had only just gotten out of bed. The state of the bed also suggested restless sleep.

There was a cup in the sink, filled with water – John had had a cup of tea yesterday, but had left the cup to soak rather than choosing to clean it up. That must have been unusual – John was a tidy person generally, given the state of his flat. However, the fact that he'd not cleaned up last night was no surprise, given how tired he had claimed to be. John always smelt faintly of tea – clearly it was something he had a lot of, likely more when he was emotional when he needed some sort of comfort or some way to calm down. He must have been worked up after shifting, in need of the calming drink, but still too tired to wash up properly.

John finished making his bed, and walked over to the kitchen (which could not be called a kitchen; it was a counter at the side of the room with some necessary appliances on it) to put the kettle on. "Did you want..." he started, and then cut himself off, frowning slightly, before asking, "Vampires wouldn't really drink tea, would they?"

"We can eat and drink, but we do not require it. We don't get anything out of it except for the taste, which is nothing special in comparison to blood."

"Right. Well, did you want tea?"

Sherlock's lip quirked slightly, and he shook his head. "No."

John nodded once, taking out a mug from the cupboard rather than cleaning the one that was still in the sink, and he took an Earl Grey tea bag from a box in the other cupboard. "Right. So, why did you think it was a good idea to wake me up?" he asked, looking over at Sherlock while he waited for the kettle to boil. "Did you want something?"

Sherlock shrugged. "You weren't texting me, and I was bored. Besides, I'm interested. I've seen werewolves shift before, but you would be the only one willing to really explain it to me.

"Who said I was willing to explain it to you?"

Sherlock cocked his head to one side. "Well, you're the only werewolf who hasn't lunged at my throat, so I figure you're the most likely."

John smirked slightly at that. The kettle boiled, and he poured hot water into his cup. "All right," he said after a moment, jiggling the tea bag around in the water. "What do you want to know?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

Sherlock managed to reign in his excitement until John had finished making his tea and was leaning back against the kitchen counter. His flat didn't have a sofa or a table, and the desk was only big enough for one, so there was no convenient spot for them to sit and have a nice chat. Sherlock wasn't concerned, however; he was more than happy to stand, and when it became apparent that John didn't mind doing the same, the questions started pouring out of his mouth.

"I've seen werewolves change before – I know the way your bodies restructure themselves. I want to know what goes on inside, what happens in your head. Can you still think in the same way that you can in your human form? Are you conscious of what is going on around you? Does your brain work more like an animal's would, or are you still essentially human in thought, and simply in an animal's body?"

"You've had time to think about this, haven't you?" John raised his eyebrows, a faint smile playing at the corner of his mouth. "Um, I don't think I can answer your questions. Whether or not I'm conscious of what's going on around me, I don't know, but it's all fuzzy the next morning. I probably can't think properly, though, because if I could I doubt I'd be throwing myself at a steel door to try to escape."

"You remember trying to escape?"

John shook his head. "Not really. I just know it's something the Wolf would do."

"You're still referring to 'the Wolf' as if it is something separate from you."

"Well, it is. I'm not some bloodthirsty animal." – Sherlock made a sceptical sound but John ignored him – "I'm human, and the Wolf sort of… exists in my mind, and comes out closer to the full moon."

"Wrong."

"Excuse me?" John raised his eyebrows at the vampire, and Sherlock could see his body language change immediately, becoming defensive.

"You're not human, John. You've not been human since you were in Afghanistan. You are a werewolf; 'the Wolf', as you refer to it, is merely the more instinctual side of who you are, not a separate thing to you."

"And you'd know this better than I do, would you? You'd know exactly what's going on in my own head."

"You want it to be separate from you. You want to believe that that isn't you, that you're still, more or less, the person you were before you were bitten. Telling yourself that 'the Wolf' isn't you is a coping mechanism, nothing more."

"I think I'd know the difference between making something up as a coping mechanism and the actual situation."

"No, you wouldn't, your emotions would blind you."

John put his half-finished cup of tea down on the counter, and Sherlock could see that the things he was saying were getting to the other man. John's shoulders were squared and his head held high in a military-like stance - he was falling back into old habits defensively - and his mouth was set in a hard line. He was silent for a moment, perhaps trying to form a coherent argument against what Sherlock was saying, but eventually he decided against even trying. "I don't have to deal with this," he said. "I really do not care what you think, go entertain yourself somewhere else. Find some human to feed on."

"I don't feed on humans."

John's posture didn't change, but Sherlock heard his heart rate pick up just the tiniest bit. "What do you feed on, then?"

"Blood bags," Sherlock replied, and John relaxed a miniscule amount. "Infinitely more convenient than having to find someone to feed on without being noticed, or having to deal with a regular feeder."

"Right. Whatever. Just… piss off. I'm not dealing with this today."

"Honestly, John, you shouldn't let…"

"I said piss off, Sherlock." John didn't raise his voice, but his tone was firm, and although he kept his voice steady there was an underlying hint of anger. Sherlock waited for a moment, holding John's gaze as if to challenge him, before he brushed past the werewolf and saw his own way out.

John had been affected by what Sherlock had been saying. He had been hurt by it, angered by it, in a way that meant his emotions were ruling over his brain. Yet he hadn't shown a single sign, not one, of being on the verge of shifting.

OoO

Sherlock didn't hear from John for three days. This was partially because John spent a couple of days at home recovering – Sherlock was able to tell this by judging the strength of the werewolf's scent outside his flat and at the Tube; it was too weak for him to have been there recently – and partially because Sherlock found himself investigating a locked room murder that held his attention for a full day and a half before he solved it.

Finding himself bored a matter of hours after solving the case, he decided it was time to see if John had stopped hiding away from the world and had returned to his normal routine. It came as no real surprise that he had;.Sherlock found him as he exited the Tube station that afternoon. The vampire's gaze flickered over him briefly, taking in the smart button up shirt and neatly combed hair.

"Job interview?" he asked, falling into step beside him easily.

John glanced over at him without breaking his stride. "Was beginning to wonder when you'd turn up again," he said, without a hint of malice in his tone that would have suggested he was still harbouring hurt feelings from their last conversation. "Yeah, just down at a clinic."

"You got the job, obviously."

"You know, some people find out these things by having a proper conversation."

"We are having a proper conversation."

"I mean one where you ask questions and get answers, not one where you come up and answer the questions yourself."

"Dull. Do you really think you could hold down a stable place of employment with your... condition?"

John looked around briefly before responding – Sherlock knew he was trying to work out how many people were within hearing range and could overhear their conversation. It was amusing, more than anything else, seeing how worried the werewolf was about such a petty thing like that. Sherlock knew when to use certain words to avoid drawing attention, but even when people could overhear their conversations, most had a tendency to ignore it, to shrug it off even though the topic in question sounded fantastical. People tended to assume normality – they would make excuses in their head, make sense of a nonsensical situation. People rarely came to the conclusion that they were overhearing a conversation by two creatures believed only to exist in fairy tales and horror films (and the occasional bad romance novel).

"Yes, actually," he said after a moment (apparently satisfied that there were no risks with having this conversation now). "I'm human most of the time, and this isn't going to stop me from getting a job."

"You're not human most of the time," said Sherlock, and he kept talking before John could protest. "You're a werewolf all of the time."

"Fine, I look human most of the time. I'll manage."

"Won't your boss become suspicious when you have to take a few days off every month, at around the same time?"

"It's not a permanent position yet, and it's not full time. I'll cross that bridge when I get there."

"What about the stress that comes with being a doctor? You're not the same man you were in Afghanistan. How can you be expected to cope with the pressure without shifting?"

"I'll manage." John's voice sounded tight and firm, but calm, without the anger that Sherlock had heard the last time they had spoken like this.

"You're in a much better mood than the last time I spoke to you," Sherlock commented.

"The last time you spoke to me, I was overtired and irritable. I'd apologise for the way I spoke to you, but, to be fair, you did kind of deserve it."

"I was only being realistic."

"Yeah, we're not having this discussion. Come on, I'm starving and would like to get home and have something to eat."

OoO

John's lycanthropy came up in conversation again about a week later, one afternoon after John's shift at the clinic. John had chosen to take a cab instead of the Tube, but when he found Sherlock waiting outside his flat when the cab pulled up, he decided to let the vampire inside while he made himself something for dinner. It was another way in which John was unusual, Sherlock thought – werewolves were known to be territorial, but yet John was easily letting a vampire into his territory. It should have caused an instinctual reaction, the smell of vampire in John's own home, and yet John did not look the faintest bit concerned.

"Should I expect to find you taking cabs more often now that you have a job that allows you to afford it?" Sherlock asked as he wandered around John's room, taking in everything that had changed since the last time he was here (which was essentially nothing – the flat was so bare it hardly looked lived in at all). After a moment, he seated himself on the edge of John's desk, watching as the werewolf went through his cupboard and pulled out a can of vegetable soup.

"Probably not. I don't have regular enough shifts yet to afford doing it every time. It'll probably just be when I don't want to walk too far."

"Because of your psychosomatic limp," Sherlock finished, emphasising the second last word.

John pursed his lips. "It's not psychosomatic, you know. I did get shot."

"Yes, in the shoulder, which has absolutely no impact on the way you walk."

"Well, obviously it does, otherwise I wouldn't be limping."

"You're limping because your leg hurts, because you have a psychosomatic leg injury. Perhaps if you would just accept that I'm right, that will go away. There are a few matters on which you should accept that I'm right, really."

"Yes, because you know more about my injury and werewolves than I do," John muttered, glancing over his shoulder at Sherlock and rolling his eyes before he returned his gaze to the stovetop.

"Do you limp when you're in wolf form?"

That seemed to make John think, given the way he paused for a moment before he continued to stir his soup around. "I don't know," he said. "Probably, given that injuries exist on whatever form I'm in."

"Wrong," Sherlock said, and before John could protest, he elaborated, "No, not about the injuries, you're right about that much. You don't limp in wolf form, because wolves don't have psychosomatic injuries."

"And you know this for certain, do you? You've seen me in wolf form?" John froze slightly after saying it, and glanced over his shoulder. "You weren't spying on me when I used your brother's basement, were you?"

"No, of course not." Sherlock made a dismissive hand gesture. "Well, Mycroft might have been – he does love security cameras – but I've not been granted access to any footage of you from that night. However, I know that your injury is psychosomatic, and I know that animals do not have psychosomatic injuries, so it's not a grand leap to deduce that you don't limp when you're a wolf."

"Look, I get that you're clever, but I'm pretty sure I might have a little bit more knowledge about myself than you do."

"Well..."

"No."

Sherlock sighed, looking around the room for a moment before he let his gaze return to John. "You really should shift voluntarily. Not only would it prove my point that you do not limp in wolf form – which would benefit you, because perhaps your silly little mind would realise that the injury is psychosomatic and you'd stop feeling it – but you could let yourself become stronger and faster at shifting, and better at controlling yourself in that form."

"I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation already."

"Yes, when you were overtired and emotional. I thought that perhaps your decision would have changed, now that you're capable of thinking logically."

"Well, you thought wrong. I'm not shifting any more than I need to."

"You're only making this harder on yourself in the long run."

"No, I'm making it easier, because I'm making sure I don't have to suffer more than one night a month."

"You'll never learn to control yourself."

"I said no." John all but cut him off, shooting a glare over his shoulder before he took the saucepan off the heat and began pouring his soup into a bowl. "And as that really doesn't make a difference to you, I suggest you get over it and find something else to talk about, or you can go spend the rest of the night back at your place, or wherever else it is that you vampires got at night."

Sherlock complied, changing the subject, but the thought still lingered in the back of his mind.

OoO

Sherlock had always had an addictive personality and a tendency towards obsessions. Something could catch his attention, and he would fixate on it, focussing on nothing else for weeks, months, or maybe even years. The drugs, the blood, even the crimes he investigated were proof of that – give him an interesting case, and he would forget to feed or sleep or simply do anything outside of working on solving the mystery.

Somehow, John had become a mystery that needed to be solved, something for him to fixate on and be obsessed with. John was unusually controlled, especially for such a young werewolf, and Sherlock wanted to see that control break. He wanted to see what made John Watson snap, what it would take for him to lose control and shift on a different night to the full moon.

Sherlock justified that it would be beneficial for John as well – the werewolf had been too stubborn to agree that learning to shift on command, letting his body become used to shifting, would make the entire process easier. Perhaps it would help John's mind as well as his body – perhaps if he controlled himself, he would become more conscious during the nights of the full moon, and he could learn to control himself in his wolf form.

In between cases, it wasn't as though there was anything else for him to do. He had no interest in helping Mycroft with his hunter problem, and besides, it wasn't as though this hunter was going to arrive in London immediately. In contrast to the eternity that Sherlock could live for, the werewolf's life span was short, and Sherlock decided that he might as well take advantage of this source of amusement while he could. And so, Sherlock became obsessed with the idea of making John lose control.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note: **This chapter contains a couple of tiny mentions of drug use.

Thank you again to everyone who has followed or favourited this story, and especially to those who have reviewed. I honestly cannot explain how much it means to me.

* * *

**Chapter Nine**

Since he had been turned, Sherlock had come across a number of werewolves. Most of the time, he'd steer clear of them – he would spend less time in the more heavily populated areas, and he generally made an effort to stay away from places that smelt of packs and their territory. However, there had been times – three of them, to be precise – when he had encountered a werewolf and had been unable to keep his distance. Those encounters were part of the reason why he took such precautions in avoiding the creatures.

The first encounter had come to pass a matter of months after Sherlock had been turned. He did not have the clearest memory of it – he did not have many clear memories from that time, permanently lost in a state of blood lust, high on both the blood and the drugs coursing through his victims' veins. However, he could remember enough to know what had occurred, and reluctant conversations with Mycroft confirmed that these memories were correct. The werewolf in question had only been young, bitten no more than a matter of months ago, and although Sherlock refused to consider the alternative, it was likely the reason why he had escaped the situation alive. He would have hardly been able to defend himself against a stronger werewolf while under the influence of drugs.

The werewolf's scent had been repulsive to Sherlock; he could remember that part clearly. It had made his fangs lengthen inside his mouth, which had not made sense initially (at least, it would not have had he been thinking properly about what was going on), because his fangs only lengthened when he wanted to feed and he most definitely had not wanted to feed from anything that smelt like that. In hindsight, Sherlock knew that his scent had had a similar impact on the werewolf, judging by how tense the man had looked as he passed him. The werewolf (in human form, at that point in time) had brushed past Sherlock almost violently, and Sherlock had snapped at him without thinking about the consequences, raising his voice and telling him in no polite terms to watch where he was going. What had followed was a punch in the face, and when Sherlock then bared his fangs, the man started to shift.

Given how young the werewolf had been, shifting was not a quick process, and it certainly did not seem like a painless one. Sherlock had watched for a few minutes as the creature writhed on the ground, a part of him fascinated, wanting to understand what he was seeing, and then Mycroft had shown up. The rest was a bit of a blur, but Sherlock knew that Mycroft had somehow gotten him away from the werewolf before he had finished shifting. Sherlock refused to consider it a rescue.

The second and third werewolves that Sherlock had had a particularly memorable encounter with had happened several years later, long after the months that Sherlock had spent locked in Mycroft's basement. He had been walking through a street one night – quiet but not completely empty – when he caught onto their scent, and he knew that if he could smell them, they could smell him. Rather than attempting to outrun them, he'd turned and headed into the nearest alleyway, so that they were out of sight of the few humans wandering the street at that time. It had been a good decision to do so, because one of them had shifted as soon as they rounded the corner, taking only a moment to do so, and he had lunged, knocking Sherlock to the ground.

If he ever told the story, Sherlock would always say that it had been an easy fight, and that he had been the stronger of the two of them without question. In reality, they had almost been evenly matched, and Sherlock had struggled with the beast for several minutes as it snapped in his face, trying to bite. When it had become apparent that pushing him off and escaping that way was not an option, Sherlock had tried another method. With some difficulty, he had managed to pin the wolf down, just long enough to sink his fangs into the beast's neck.

In a high enough dose, vampire venom could be immediately deadly to a werewolf. It would slow their heart to a stop in a matter of minutes. However, Sherlock discovered that night that a small enough dose worked rather effectively as a sedative. He had moved away when the wolf's body had gone slack beneath his, but the creature's heart had still been beating, albeit slowly. The other werewolf had lunged at that point, going for Sherlock's throat, and Sherlock had fled to avoid needing another mouthful of fur. Sherlock got away unharmed; it was likely that the werewolf had stayed with its pack mate rather than putting up a chase.

What Sherlock had learnt from these experiences was that making a werewolf lose control was not hard. The latter two had lost control simply because of the presence of a vampire, and the first had only needed some rude words to push him over the edge. When it came to John, however, it had already become abundantly clear that he was not like other werewolves, and that he wasn't going to lose control just because Sherlock smelt of vampire. He was also not losing control as a result of the way Sherlock had tried to push him, pressing topics about what he was. Making John lose control was clearly not an easy task, and so his plan to do so was not one that he could immediately put into action. He had to gather more information about the werewolf first, to learn what topics were sensitive and what was most likely to put him on edge.

Gathering information about the werewolf wasn't really that difficult, either, because John didn't treat him like an enemy. Sherlock might have gone as far as to say that John treated him as a friend (even though they couldn't possibly be friends, because Sherlock didn't have friends, and vampires and werewolves did not get along). So, it wasn't difficult to slip questions into conversation under the pretence of simply wanting to get to know the werewolf better, and the werewolf tended to respond without much hesitation. It didn't mean that John was opening up to him completely, of course – Sherlock could tell when he was skating around certain topics, leaving out information or changing the topic too quickly – but he was still able to learn a thing or two.

He borrowed John's phone one afternoon while John was preparing dinner for himself (that is, he took John's phone off the table when the werewolf put it down and managed to get as far as opening John's inbox before the werewolf noticed and snatched it away from him). He deduced from the engraving and the scuff marks that John had an alcoholic younger brother who had recently split up from his wife (his decision), and that the two of them didn't get along but the brother still wanted to keep in touch. John had praised him for the deductions, called him amazing and fantastic, and then grinned and pointed out that "Harry" was actually short for "Harriet", his younger sister. He had had a bit of a laugh as Sherlock had reprimanded himself for the foolish mistake, but Sherlock filed the information away – addiction and family relationships would likely be a touchy subject.

About a week later, he went through John's drawers while the man was in the bathroom. He hadn't been looking for anything in particular; in fact, he hadn't even been looking for anything to aid his deductions. He had simply wanted something to do while he waited for John to finish up. Beneath the laptop in the top desk drawer, he found John's gun. He was certain he would have deduced that the man had an illegal firearm from everything else that he knew about the werewolf, but this was hard evidence. He would have filed it away in the same way that he had the deductions about John's sister, but John had proceeded to exit the bathroom while the drawer was still open, and he hadn't seemed at all panicked about the gun being discovered. He had told Sherlock, very firmly, to put the gun back, and then he had proceeded to go about his day as normal. Sherlock chose not to read too far into the trust that that must have suggested.

OoO

"Do you know the werewolf that bit you?" Sherlock asked one evening as John bustled around his flat. It wasn't a topic that the vampire expected to be sensitive – given John had been bitten in Afghanistan, it seemed more likely that he wouldn't have been acquainted with the creature who was responsible for turning him – but it was still a gap in Sherlock's knowledge that he wanted to fill. He had information about the person John was now, and information about the person he was before he had joined the army, but the majority of the details about his time in Afghanistan were still unknown, particularly those pertaining to bullet wounds and bites.

John's shake of his head, then, came as no surprise. However, John's next question did. He spoke before Sherlock had had the chance to continue his line of questioning in order to understand how the bite had occurred. "Do you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Do you know the vampire who turned you?"

"Why?"

"Aren't I allowed to learn things about you too?" John took a sip from his mug, before leaning back against the kitchen counter. When Sherlock failed to respond, he prompted, "So, do you?"

Sherlock shrugged his shoulders dismissively. "Of course. Turning for a vampire is not as simple as a bite. You have to be drained of human blood and you have to feed from a vampire at the same time to replenish it. That's not exactly something that can be easily done anonymously."

"Sounds painful."

"Not once the venom's in your system. You're too relaxed to bother trying to resist. Apparently it can be intimate, although my experience certainly wasn't." He wrinkled his nose slightly at the thought.

"Why's that? Who was it who turned you?"

"My brother." Sherlock couldn't help but spit the words, just a little, and John must have picked up on what the tone meant, because he pushed off the counter and moved across the room to where Sherlock was sitting at the desk, leaning against it instead.

"Did you want this?" he asked quietly, making a vague gesture to all of Sherlock, and Sherlock hesitated for a long moment before he decided on responding with the truth.

"No."

OoO

**December, 1887**

It was better than cocaine, better than heroin. He felt like he was floating, soaring high above the clouds. He had never felt so relaxed, so peaceful. Logically, it should have hurt. He'd seen Mycroft's fangs before they had pierced the skin of his neck – they were sharp and they were large, and he should have been able to feel it. At the very least, it should have hurt as much as Redbeard's teeth had hurt when the puppy had been teething, chewing on toys and furniture and occasionally Sherlock's fingers. However, the initial pain as Mycroft's fangs had broken the skin had barely lasted a second, and then it was gone, replaced with waves of pleasure and calmness. Why had he been resisting? He couldn't understand why he had been so desperate to get away.

His limbs felt heavy, and he shut his eyes. He could fall asleep like this. There had been so many thoughts flying around inside his head, thoughts that would have undoubtedly kept him awake for hours as he filed them away in his Mind Palace, but now they were all quiet and still. He couldn't remember the last time his head had been so calm. Had it ever been so calm? It couldn't possibly have been.

His heart rate was slowing, breathing becoming shallower. He must have been falling asleep.

"Drink," he heard Mycroft say. He hadn't felt the fangs pull away from his neck. Something pressed against his mouth, something firm and warm and wet, and the smell was repulsive. He wanted to turn his head away so that he didn't have to breathe it in, and he let out a weak sound. He didn't have the energy to push it away, couldn't stop it from forcing his lips apart so that the thick liquid could pour into his mouth. Even in his relaxed state, the taste made him want to gag. He tried to spit it out, but his head was tipped backwards, and he couldn't stop the liquid from flowing down his throat.

Then the taste was changing, becoming something less revolting. It was still spilling into his mouth, but it wasn't fast enough – he needed more, needed it like air. He pressed into the taste, his strength coming back to him as he reached out a hand to hold the object in place. His teeth lengthened in his mouth, the ends sharpening into points that broke through the skin of Mycroft's wrist, letting more blood run down his throat.


End file.
